Living through the Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a vast array of emotions, from fear and anxiety over the unknown, to appreciation and gratitude for what we have. As we look back over 2020, assessing those emotions and figuring out how to negotiate the various challenges the year has brought about, is vital. From families negotiating home space as they learn to work, study and spend ample amounts of time together, to governments negotiating which vaccines will be delivered to which communities, we are in new territory.
One person who is considering how the individual and how society will work through these challenges is Dan Shapiro, founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Programme. He teaches a course on negotiation at Harvard College and is an associate professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School/McLean hospital. He also has several publications, including Negotiating the Non-negotiable: how to resolve your most emotionally charged conflicts.
Dr Shapiro, whose life's work has been focused on conflict resolution, spoke to The National for the third episode of "My 2020" podcast about how we should deal with the fallout from the pandemic.
He said: “We are enduring massive trauma ... unless we deal with that trauma in a systematic way we will face a problem”.
“If people do not mourn, you have tremendous problematic emotions that start to arise in the situations of conflict ... In this situation, I don't quite know what not mourning means. But I know it wouldn't be good.”
Dealing with the grief people around the world are feeling and helping others going through difficult times is necessary, especially as Dr Shapiro is concerned about how the pandemic could increase the possibility of conflict. After the initial co-operation between countries when the pandemic hit, “my shoulders raised, I was nervous, because my notion was, well, soon enough, people are going to be having to figure out how to ration resources, how to deal with the challenges of, you know, the real nitty-gritty challenges of the pandemic”.
Considering how to make difficult decisions – life-and-death decisions during this pandemic – means not always having a “right answer”. Dr Shapiro suggests the focus should be on “what is the best process to get us to find those answers”.
"My 2020" is a seven-part series, hosted by Mina Al-Oraibi, The National's Editor-in-Chief, speaking to leaders on how their lives and industries have been changed by Covid-19.
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About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
The specs: 2019 Cadillac XT4
Price, base: Dh145,000
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged in-line four-cylinder engine
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 237hp @ 5,000rpm
Torque: 350Nm @ 1,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.7L / 100km
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Soldier F
“I was in complete disgust at the fact that only one person was to be charged for Bloody Sunday.
“Somebody later said to me, 'you just watch - they'll drop the charge against him'. And sure enough, the charges against Soldier F would go on to be dropped.
“It's pretty hard to think that 50 years on, the State is still covering up for what happened on Bloody Sunday.”
Jimmy Duddy, nephew of John Johnson
Day 5, Abu Dhabi Test: At a glance
Moment of the day When Dilruwan Perera dismissed Yasir Shah to end Pakistan’s limp resistance, the Sri Lankans charged around the field with the fevered delirium of a side not used to winning. Trouble was, they had not. The delivery was deemed a no ball. Sri Lanka had a nervy wait, but it was merely a stay of execution for the beleaguered hosts.
Stat of the day – 5 Pakistan have lost all 10 wickets on the fifth day of a Test five times since the start of 2016. It is an alarming departure for a side who had apparently erased regular collapses from their resume. “The only thing I can say, it’s not a mitigating excuse at all, but that’s a young batting line up, obviously trying to find their way,” said Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s coach.
The verdict Test matches in the UAE are known for speeding up on the last two days, but this was extreme. The first two innings of this Test took 11 sessions to complete. The remaining two were done in less than four. The nature of Pakistan’s capitulation at the end showed just how difficult the transition is going to be in the post Misbah-ul-Haq era.
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